If There Is Love, Smallpox Scars Are

I Have Spent A Good Many Years Since―too Many, I Think―being Ashamed About What I Write. I Think I Was Forty Before I Realized That Almost Every Writer Of Fiction Or Poetry Who Has Ever Published A Line Has Been Accused By Someone Of Wasting His Or Her God-given Talent. If You Write (or Paint Or Dance Or Sculpt Or Sing, I Suppose), Someone Will Try To Make You Feel Lousy About It, That's All.

American Grammar Doesn't Have The Sturdiness Of British Grammar, But It Has Its Own Scruffy Charm.

We Fall From Womb To Tomb, From One Blackness And Toward Another, Remembering Little Of The One And Knowing Nothing Of The Other ... Except Through Faith.

The Kids Accepted My Drinking As A Part Of Life. Not A Particularly Pernicious Part. I Didn't Beat Up On Them. Basically I Don't Think I Was So Different From A Lot Of Dads Who Have Three Or Four Martinis When They Get In From Work, Wine With Dinner And So On.

Writing Is A Lonely Job. Having Someone Who Believes In You Makes A Lot If Difference. They Don't Have To Makes Speeches. Just Believing Is Usually Enough.